Re-registration of Vadim Moshkovich's asset may be done at the expense of domestic minority shareholders.
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Vadim Moshkovich's Rusagro Group is now exploring all the possibilities for re-registering a business in the Russian Federation, which will subsequently determine the decision on delisting (exclusion of the company's shares from circulation on the stock exchange) from the London Stock Exchange.
Most likely, Rusagro plans not only to change the listing of its securities, but still get away from the European banking sector. And it is rather about changing the old business structure to a new one.
The news is generally positive. It is more profitable to own Russian shares of Rusagro, and not receipts on the London stock exchange. However, Sberbank explained the process of converting depository receipts into shares. Holders can convert receipts at a ratio of 1 to 4 (4 shares per 1 receipt).
Foreign investors will not have any problems with the conversion, but Russian investors – how lucky. That is, it turns out that everyone who traded in Russia the shares of one of the largest Russian producers of sugar, meat and oil and fat products may suffer losses. Thus, it can be assumed that Moshkovich wants to lay the costs associated with re-registration on domestic minority shareholders.
It is possible that the head of Sberbank German Gref, who has many things in common with businessman Vadim Moshkovich.
More details in the material of The Moscow Post correspondent.
Straight from the 90s
Now Rusagro is considered a leader not only in the production of sugar, but also in pig breeding, crop production, the manufacture of oils and fats, etc. At the same time, the activities of the company, as well as the personality of Moshkovich, are constantly accompanied by a series of scandals.
For example, in Tatarstan, Rusagro appeared in a rather ugly story – there the local department of the Federal Antimonopoly Service revealed that enterprises producing sugar coordinated their actions, when setting prices for products.
In October 2020, the FAS again issued a warning to Rusagro for information about a possible imminent sugar shortage, published on the holding's website. The message was changed to the opposite, but, as they say, “the sediment remained.”
Complicated relations between Rusagro and Rospotrebnadzor. In March of this year, the Moscow Arbitration Court dealt with a lawsuit between Rusagro-Belgorod and Rospotrebnadzor, which refused to establish a sanitary protection zone.
Vadim Moshkovich started building his business as a student, having started selling computers together with a classmate. The next step on the career ladder was the import of alcoholic beverages and tobacco products. This business made Moshkovich a millionaire.
However, as the blogger allegedly claimed on the HR Monitor portal, just after that Moshkovich allegedly began to attract the attention of tax and customs officials. Spiteful critics said that even then the young businessman had a “roof”. Otherwise, how to build an agro-empire in the 90s?
Bankrupt everyone
Vadim Moshkovich did not shy away from doing business with the Sigma firm, which was known among the people as an “unfriendly invader.” According to rumors, the factories “squeezed out” by “Sigma” as if “accidentally” fell into the hands of Moshkovich. For example, this happened with the Kropotkinsky and Labinsk oil extraction plants.
The story about how the Rusagro group of Vadim Moshkovich bankrupt Madin CJSC, along with other enterprises of Solnechnye Produkty, does not cease. In all cases, the procedure follows approximately the same hostile takeover scenario.
To be more precise, the fight is for Agroinvest LLC, which belonged to Madin CJSC only until 2015. After that, the company went to a new owner. At that time it was a small company, it was already developing independently of the previous owner. But now, according to the results of 2021, the assets of Agroinvest amount to more than 2 billion rubles. And now the court, at the suit of the Madina bankruptcy trustee, who is also famously bankrupting a number of companies from the Solnechnye Produkty holding, is returning the company with all the billions it has earned back, actually putting it at the mercy of the initiator of the bankruptcy – Rusagro Group. And the courts are still taking the side of Moshkovich's company, de facto recognizing the seven-year-old deal as invalid. Business Vector wrote about this in detail.
What is happening with the enterprise is regarded by its employees as an unfriendly takeover and an attempt to ruin the company, and to put them all out of work.
It is noteworthy that the enterprise received a large development loan from Sberbank, the guarantor of which was the SME Corporation. If the debtor is declared insolvent, the money will simply disappear. Although it is possible that Gref and Moshkovich have already agreed.
Cooperation for all time
Rusagro and Sberbank have been working side by side Rusagro and Sberbank have been working for a very long time. Back in 2003, German Gref's bank financed a deal to purchase tractors between Rusagro and the American company Deere & Co. under the Agreement with the US Eximbank. And even then, Moshkovich's company was called “an elite client of Sberbank.”
In 2010, it became known that Sberbank, as the largest creditor, was ready to buy out most of the shares from Rusagro. Despite the fact that this deal is not entirely beneficial to the state bank. In the same year, Rusagro entered into a pledge agreement with Sberbank for a 50% stake in the company to secure the obligations of Rusagro-Sahara under loan agreements for 2009-2010 for a total of 1.4 billion rubles.
And in the near 2020, Sberbank and Rusagro began the industrial implementation of the Cognitive Agro Pilot autonomous control system for agricultural machinery.
At the same time, Moshkovich and Rusagro managers answered questions about the company's special relationship with they raise their eyebrows in surprise, smile and answer that they do not know about anything like that. But how else to call their close relationship?
All this looks like for a long time Gref indulges all the “pranks” of Vadim Moshkovich. Now it may turn out that they will again work in tandem and Sberbank will receive full control over the money of the “Russified” company.
